The Book of Japanese Folktales (9784805320983)

A collection of Osamu Dazai's fractured fairy tales, magical myths and fantastical fables!

In a trench during a Tokyo raid, a father distracts his son with four familiar stories, giving them his own unique twists. Written in the final months of World War II, these are Dazai's retellings of traditional Japanese fairy tales. We meet a mischievous tanuki raccoon dog, lumbering oni ogres and a Japanese Rip Van Winkle.

Combining Dazai's legendary Book of Fairy Tales with a curated selection of lively fables and classic tales, master Dazai translator Ralph McCarthy highlights the multiple dimensions to Dazai's colorfully creative stories:

• Urashima Taro: A talking tortoise dispenses advice to a fisherman, who opens a shell given to him by a princess and instantly becomes 300 years old
• Tanuki and the Bunny: Barely escaping being made into stew, Tanuki meets his match in Bunny who sets him on fire then tricks him into boarding a mud boat that is sinking
• Tongue-Cut Sparrow: A jealous wife greedily hauling her gold-filled baskets rips out a bird's tongue before dying in the snow
• The Chrysanthemum Spirit: An obsessive gardener in search of chrysanthemum seeds meets his match in supernatural siblings with a talent for horticulture
• Lanterns of Romance: A wealthy, eccentric Japanese family take turns concocting their own elaborately horrifying versions of Rapunzel's fate, reflecting their own anxieties and neuroses
• And six more, including "The Mermaid and the Samurai" and "Blue Bamboo"

Filled with Dazai's signature wit and humor, these fables feature the fantastical and slyly subersive side of a beloved storyteller.


About the Author:
Osamu Dazai (1909-1948) was the pen name of Shuji Tsushima, the tenth of eleven children born to a wealthy landowner and politician in the far north of Japan. Dazai studied French literature at the University of Tokyo, but never received a degree. He first attracted attention in 1933 when magazines began to publish his work. Between 1930 and 1937, he made three suicide attempts, a subject he deals with in many of his short stories. Despite his troubled life and rebellious spirit, Dazai wrote in simple and colloquial style, conveying his personal torments through literature. Dazai's life ended early in a double suicide with a married lover.

Ralph McCarthy is the translator of four collections of stories by Osamu Dazai—including Self Portraits, No One Knows and Blue Bamboo—and of Ryu Murakami's novel 69.